Control the attackers arm by grabbing it with both hands (two on one control) and use your forehead to smash their face repeatedly until they lose conciousness. If things get desperate grab the blade in a tight fist (the tighter the better) a cut hand is less lethal than getting stabbed in the head.

I have been told—I do not know whether this is true—that people with no training whatsoever tend to survive knife fights with less debilitating long-term injuries than people with some training in knife defence. The reason, so it goes, is that if you attempt some techniques, you are likely to have your hands and forearms slashed, and if the tendons there are severed, it’s pretty likely that you’ll never regain 100% grip strength and mobility. Those little tendons are important. The completely untrained person is instead more likely to get stabbed in the body, which leaves injuries that heal pretty well once you’re patched up.

It should be noted that even if this argument is true, it does not address survival rates, only further consequences assuming survival. (On the one hand, 29.3% of people who end up in hospital with stab wounds to the heart survive, and the heart is really a worst-case stabbing target. On the other hand, that doesn’t tell us how many people end up in a hospital, rather than just the morgue right away, after being stabbed in the heart.)

I have been told—I do not know whether this is true—that people with no training whatsoever tend to survive knife fights with less debilitating long-term injuries than people with some training in knife defence. The reason, so it goes, is that if you attempt some techniques, you are likely to have your hands and forearms slashed, and if the tendons there are severed, it’s pretty likely that you’ll never regain 100% grip strength and mobility. Those little tendons are important. The completely untrained person is instead more likely to get stabbed in the body, which leaves injuries that heal pretty well once you’re patched up.

I'd be extremely surprised if that were true because it's a more or less completely instinctive response to try and protect your body using your arms. Defense wounds to hands and arms are almost ubiquitous in knife attacks.

I'd be extremely surprised if that were true because it's a more or less completely instinctive response to try and protect your body using your arms. Defense wounds to hands and arms are almost ubiquitous in knife attacks.

A tremendous number of police and hospital reports over the years bear this out.

"Defensive wounds" to the forearms of anyone attacked with a weapon--whether that person is trained or not--are virtually always present in cases where the intended target saw the attack coming. The absence of such wounds indicates that the assault was most likely some kind of sneak attack.